A/N: Thanks everyone, for reading and reviewing! I appreciate it. Also, I suppose it's only fair to bring back the warnings for dark/disturbing shit 'cuz we're headed that way. Mindfuckery ahead. It's a long 'un. Enjoy.
VI. "It was a pleasure to burn."
"Abigail!" Bray hollered at his sister. "Abigail, wait!"
But she ran, quick as lightning, across the muddy bank and over to where Daddy had Matt Harper bent over that big old stump.
Daddy stumbled back, pulling his pants up - why were they down in the first place? - and snapping, "You stay back, little girl. Mind your daddy now."
Matt kept on bawling like a baby. Daddy grabbed him rough by the back of his neck and one arm and threw him down into the mud. "Quit your bellyachin'. Pull your damn pants up."
He raised the belt again and brought it down. Snapped sharp like a gunshot. Bray jumped. He was so scared that he wanted to turn and run away, but Abigail hadn't stopped running.
She ran up to where Daddy was getting ready to take another swing. "Stop it, Daddy!"
Daddy brought the belt down hard.
It made a different sound this time, more a dull thump than a sharp snap, but Abigail suddenly dropped like a stone, shrieking in pain.
Bray forgot all about being scared and just got mad.
Daddy hunkered over her, belt dangling from his hand. "Dammit, girl, I told you-"
He didn't have a chance to finish what he was saying, because Bray barreled into him. He was big enough for his age that he sent Daddy tumbling backward into the mud, just like Daddy had tossed Matt down there.
As Daddy tumbled, Bray caught a strong whiff of whatever Daddy had been drinking this morning - whiskey or beer, Bray never knew which, but the smell of it - the awful stink of it - made something just snap in Bray's head.
That, and the sight of blood - bright and red - trickling out of Abigail's nose.
Bright and red.
He screamed and raged and lashed out at his daddy, little fists pounding away and teeth gnashing at whatever he could find.
Daddy punched him and whopped him with the belt, and it hurt, God it hurt, but Bray didn't stop and neither did Daddy.
"Son of a bitch!" Daddy snarled at him, swinging the belt in a low, hard arc that sent it across Bray's arm and around Bray's back. Bray hollered in pain as fire licked through him. But he charged back in, biting down into Daddy's arm as hard as he could.
Daddy howled.
Abigail screamed, "Stop it! Stop it! You're hurting him!" She grabbed Bray's arm, tiny fingers digging into his wrist. "Stop!"
While Bray was distracted trying to shake Abigail loose, Daddy took the opportunity to push him away.
Bray stumbled on the slick mud, going to his knees with a wet plop.
He flung the arm Abigail had a hold of out, whipping her away.
She reeled, and her normally-nimble feet tangled together in the weeds. She thumped down backward onto the big rocks. The back of her head hit hard enough her teeth clacked together.
Her eyes closed.
And never opened again.
x
"You worthless bastard!" Daddy'd shout at him for the first time about a week later. "You were s'psed to protect her! You killed her!"
Sloppy drunk, but the belt still cracked sharp like thunder when he brought it down on Bray's back.
It burned like fire.
Burned and burned.
xXx
The human mind, Bray Wyatt mused as he leaned against the freezing side of a metal dumpster, was an incredibly strange beast.
Snow drifted down around him, soft white and whispering against a bruised gray mid-afternoon sky.
His breath hung in the air like white smoke.
The mind, he thought again, the mind worked in mysterious ways, didn't it, conjuring up dreams of things that never happened.
He'd never stumbled into Abigail; wasn't him that had killed her - no, no it was certainly not - but sometimes...
Sometimes that old dream came to him, and for the life of him, he could never understand why.
Daddy's careless fists had killed her, and Bray had made Daddy pay for it, and that was all there was to it.
But sometimes his dreams insisted it went other ways.
Horrible ways.
You killed her!
You were s'posed to protect her.
He hadn't done either one.
He'd had the dream just this morning, in the wee hours, and he'd awoken as unsettled as the weather now, with its cold, shifting winds and periods of brooding, snowy silence.
Abigail herself was quiet, and had been all night, having cried herself out after the rabbit got away.
Things only got worse when, just a bit ago, he and his boys arrived here to the arena and had seen John Cena - ironically - with his horrible plastic smile talking down to two tiny little wisps of humanity - beautiful, dying little lights, spindly and pale and fragile from their illness, but bright-eyed and smiling with something so devastatingly genuine that Bray found it sickening - truly disgusting - that that it was over-inflated Ken doll with his pasted-on grin and dead eyes that their grief-dazed parents gushed their thanks to.
The two little boys' eyes - blue, both of them, just like Abigail's - were full of hero-worship as they looked up at Cena.
Cena, in his neon everything - hat, wristbands, tee shirt - with his face plastered over every inch of it, looked back at them like he'd had a full-body shot of Novocain.
But he smiled for the cameras that clicked and snapped like the jaws of hungry animals.
Bray had never wanted to rip a man's beating heart and burn it to ash more. His fingernails cut bloody, grinning crescents in his palms - four in each.
He'd sent Erick and Luke away, and he'd pulled his hat low over his eyes as he'd back out into the bruised gray cold of the empty parking lot. Eventually, he'd found his way over to the side of a tall dumpster that provided some protection against the swirling wind, his mind already turning over what he wanted to tell the world about John Cena.
That face on the billboard.
But his thoughts, those elusive things, kept slipping away from him, kept blowing and drifting away like snowflakes caught in a sharp gust.
He found himself watching the parking lot, watching as the others - the ignorant narcissists and outright fools calling themselves Superstars and Divas - arrived in their packs of two and three, all of them bunched up and racing in to find warmth.
He crouched down beside the dumpster to make himself less conspicuous, eyes peeled for the rabbit as he wondered, even now, just how Ambrose managed to slip free of the snare last night.
The nagging question that was at the heart of his unease.
You killed her.
You failed her.
No, no he hadn't done either.
(Did I, Abigail? Why won't you talk to me?)
Finally, though, finally the rabbit appeared - wrapped in a black leather coat, stocking hat and sunglasses - huddling against the icy wind, his bags slung across one shoulder, and none other than William Regal a step or two behind him.
The pale cold of Regal's eyes - stark contrast to the black he'd worn - swept across the parking lot, restless, clearly searching for something.
Regal looked back and forth among all the cars, along the outside of the building, around the trucks, and then right over to where Bray was still crouched.
Sudden alarm shooting through him, Bray ducked back.
Not fast enough, though, because his eyes locked with Regal's for an instant, for one fleeting second.
He actually saw Regal stop walking and turn, pale and dark with snow swirling around him.
It wasn't fear, exactly, that made Bray back against the side of the building and edge around the corner, that made him walk away quickly and head for an open door where the production crew was still carrying equipment inside (one well away from the door Regal and Ambrose had been headed toward), that made him seek out his boys in the dark of the arena's basement.
He wasn't afraid of William Regal.
Bad man, Abigail whispered just then. It was the first time he'd heard her all day. She sounded worried. We need to save him from the bad man. We have to save him before he gets lost again.
"We will, darlin," Bray murmured comfortingly to her. Relived and glad, because he hated it when she went quiet on him. (You were s'posed to protect her.) He shook the snow off his hat's brim as he headed down a quiet flight of concrete steps. "We'll stop the bad man."
He is a bad man, Bray.
"He's a paper snake, Abigail," Bray said. "Might hiss at us, but he's got no teeth. You remember."
Back at NXT, they'd exposed Regal as nothing more than a mere shadow of the monster he'd claimed himself to be. The snake had been defanged by the feud with Ambrose, but never quite seemed to realize he had no bite or poison left, wasn't smart enough to slither away and die like the old and broken thing he really was.
"Paper snake," he reminded himself, descending further into the dark. "But we'll have to crush it for good this time."
Bad man, Abigail said again.
But she began to talk, and as she spoke, as she poured out her sweet sunshine ideas, the chill that had seeped into his bones began to thaw and it took the concern - not fear, never fear - with it.
He moved away from the stairs and into the cold, empty basement, humming under his breath.
Bad man, all right, but Bray knew a thing or two about bad men, didn't he?
From John Cena to Triple H to William Regal and back again, the world was just full of 'em.
xXx
After some nice, leisurely late morning sex - Seth on top this time, riding Roman slow and easy - and an invigorating workout at a nearby CrossFit box (to which Seth dragged Roman kicking and screaming, and where he then proceeded to stomp Roman's ass at the Workout of the Day), they had a late lunch and finally headed off to the arena.
He did think about texting Dean about meet for breakfast, but decided to leave it alone.
Especially after the whole 'you're out, but you're not out' shit last night.
Truth was, Seth thought as he stood surveying the tiny, windowless room that Dean had apparently claimed for them earlier (had left most of his shit - including his cell phone - in there, anyway), he really wasn't in a hurry to dig back into that issue.
He'd had a good night and morning with Roman - had ranted and raved and then had been fucked rough until all the edges in his brain had been sanded down and smoothed out enough to let him sleep - and felt ready to focus on dealing with the Wyatts.
Because out of everything they had in front of them, the Wyatts were the big issue.
"If we can just deal with the Wyatts, get a win back from them," Seth had said last night, pacing the small confines of their shared hotel room, "then I think it'll help us get our feet back under us."
"We would've gotten a win back last night," Roman pointed out from where he'd sat on the end of the bed. He'd stripped down to just his pants, and his hair hung loose like a dark waterfall over his shoulders. Pensive eyes had found Seth's. "But he was right, wasn't he? Dean. It wouldn't have mattered."
"It would've," Seth said. He'd yanked his own tee shirt off and tossed it over onto the armchair where all their bags had ended up. "Any win's a win, but we need more. We gotta make 'em see there's plenty of fight left in these dogs. Burn these assholes to the ground."
Now, he thought as he snapped his vest's buckles closed and reached for his gloves, now was the time put word into action.
Wyatt supposedly had something to say to John Cena tonight - like we're already an afterthought - and there was no fucking way he was getting away without answering for the shit he'd done.
"So do we wait here?" Roman asked suddenly. He'd finished dressing already, other than he hadn't pulled his hair out of its ponytail. "Or should we go see if we can find...him or them, or…? What are we even doing?"
Seth shook his head. "We should try to find him first but if we find them, let's - we'll throw down our challenge. Another match tonight. All six of us - once and for all."
Roman squared his shoulders and grinned. "Sounds good. Sounds real damn good. Lead the way, baby."
Funny thing, though, they walked around and around the arena - making quiet laps through through the basement, up to the concourse, and back down to the locker area, but never saw Dean or the Wyatts anywhere.
They saw other people - PAs, other Superstars and Divas, and even, at one point, William Regal off talking to Xavier Woods - but not the people they were looking for.
More worried than he wanted to admit and suddenly wound so tight he felt his spine might snap in half, Seth grabbed a production guy and told him if he saw Ambrose running around anywhere to send him to the locker room. The PA nodded distractedly and scurried off to go do whatever the hell it was he did, leaving Seth to turn and give Roman a kind of tired, frustrated look.
Roman's frown carved deep lines into his forehead, and Seth knew without even having to ask what he was thinking, but before Roman could even start to suggest they consider making The Shield a two-man act, too, Seth walked away.
The thing was, he still felt like hell about last night.
Yeah, he'd been the one to suggest pushing Dean out of the relationship to kind of smooth things over with Roman, but fuck, that wasn't how he wanted things to go - not even close.
He wanted to have a chance to talk to Dean himself and apologize, explain.
As much as Dean acted like nothing mattered to him, Seth knew he mattered.
They tried to push it off as 'just sex' down in FCW, but Dean somehow managed to insert himself into Seth's life so seamlessly over the past three years that Seth took it for granted he'd always be there, cracking some stupid fucking joke to get Seth smiling after a shitty day, or making fun of Seth for being addicted to CrossFit, or pushing Seth to have the kind of rough-and-tumble sex he craved but couldn't seem to get anywhere else, or just hanging out watching stupid movies while they filched food of each other's plates.
After all that, he wanted to do better than, 'Sorry, bro, sex was great, but you're out,' and he wanted better from Dean than that shitty fake smile and, 'It's fine.'
Because it wasn't fine.
It wasn't fucking fine at all.
But with Wyatt and now Regal hovering over their heads like vultures, and everything in the whole damn world trying to crack them all apart, he wasn't sure what to do.
"Stupid motherfucker," he muttered, fetching Dean's bags one good, swift kick.
It sent everything, cell phone and all, tumbling to the ground.
He was still staring down at it all when he felt strong arms close around him from behind - one tattooed and one not - and felt a chin settle on his shoulder.
Which shouldn't have helped - he wanted to be mad at Roman, he really, really did - but it did help, especially because what Roman said was, "If you want, I'll catch a cab back to the hotel after we're done here tonight - assuming this thing with the Wyatts doesn't blow out of control - and you can have the car. In case…"
Seth pushed his hair back off his face and nodded. "Thanks."
Roman cleared his throat. "You know, uh, I'm not sure he's gonna be real happy about you breaking his phone. If you did."
"How the hell would he even know?" Seth snorted. "Not like he ever turns the fucking thing on, anyway."
"Mm." Roman's chuckle rumbled through them both. "True. Very true."
Eventually, Roman led Seth over to the tiny room's lone bench bench, and together, they sat down to wait.
xXx
There was, Regal mused, really nothing quite like the sight of Dean Ambrose down on his knees.
Certainly made Regal weak in his.
Especially - and most crucially at the moment - when Ambrose was on his knees intently focused on working over a cock with his mouth.
Regal honestly had to sag back against the men's room's white-tiled wall to keep himself upright as that wily mouth and its wicked tongue worked together to create friction in the kind of slow rhythm that'd about drive a man mad.
"You," Regal panted, fingers threading through Ambrose's hair and tugging lightly, "are bloody amazing at this."
Ambrose hmmed in agreement as he licked his way down and back up again, and Regal shuddered at reverberation. Which made Ambrose laugh quietly, which sent more of those little subtle tingles racing up Regal's spine, and round and around.
One of his better ideas today, and considering what they'd gotten up to this morning, that was saying something.
Ambrose was still Ambrose, of course, and despite the lurking threat that was Bray Wyatt, the idea of being around a lot of people had appealed to him about as much as an anesthesia-free tooth extraction.
Regal's compromise had been to stick him in one of the rooms the production crew had commandeered to store equipment crates. The room had a door, and Regal threatened castration if the bloody idiot even thought about opening it before Regal finished his meeting with Xavier Woods and his call with the NXT team.
Ambrose's eyes had widened in mock horror, hands lifting to cover himself. "Not the boys. Kinda attached to 'em here."
Regal had reached over to ruffle his hair. "Then be a good lad and do as you're told."
He knew full well Ambrose would bristle at words like those, and naturally Ambrose had, chin lifting and eyes narrowing. But his mouth had quirked, and he'd said, "You're lucky I want to take a nap anyway right now, 'cuz otherwise, I'd tell you exactly where to stick it, old man."
Regal'd merely laughed and looked deliberately down at Ambrose's backside . "Already have, lad. Although, if that's an invitation, I certainly won't say no. In fact, I'd take you up on it now, if not for my meeting."
"Not like my ass is going anywhere," Ambrose'd pointed out. He'd hopped up on a small stack of crates and slouched back against another. "So go. Do your shit." A lazy flap of his hand. "See you later."
Regal had walked away bloody giddy - giddy - as a child with a brand new toy. And he'd spent his meeting caught somewhere between watching out for Wyatt and anticipatory impatience.
(Dear God in heaven, what is the matter with you?)
He didn't see Wyatt and the meeting finally ended, so he'd hurried back to the room, and he'd felt more relieved than he probably should have to see Ambrose was still there. Ambrose had changed into his Shield gear at some point, but that was the only difference; he sat awake, slouched against the crate stack behind him, fingers drumming and absent rhythm on his chest.
Still a while to go before the Main Event taping even started, a fact that neither remarked on as Ambrose stood and stretched and followed Regal up to an empty men's room on the still-deserted upper concourse. Not an ideal place for this, but it was just to take the edge off anyway.
Ambrose seemed to understand that, too, because he turned and pushed Regal back against the wall practically before the door closed, going to his knees and reaching for Regal's belt without so much as a 'by your leave.'
He'd dived right in like he couldn't wait, unselfconscious and unashamed, and Regal quite liked that.
At the moment, he very much liked it, liked the sight of that shaggy head bobbing and the occasional smug looks filtered up through his lashes and...well, all of it, really.
Like having Ambrose pinned down under him this morning, this was something he could get used to.
Regal let his head fall back against the tile and let the boy take him apart, feeling everything build until he choked out some incoherent warning, which only earned him another one of those hmms and the tight suction around him speeding up until he finished, eyes squinched shut and teeth grit against the sounds that wanted to escape between them as Ambrose swallowed everything down.
Afterward, Ambrose sat back, looking impossibly self-satisfied even with his chin shiny and his eyes gone a bit glassy, and Regal, buzzing and boneless, nudged him with a foot, muttering, "Shut it, you."
Ambrose just laughed and rolled to his feet easily despite the rather prominent evidence of his own arousal tenting his trousers. He walked over to one of the sinks and bent down to splash water over his face.
Regal eventually made his way over to the other sink, quickly wiping himself down and tucking himself away - both relieved and rather impressed to see his trousers were still perfectly clean.
Loose-limbed and relaxed all over again, he ambled over to return the favor.
Without asking for permission, he undid and unfastened and unzipped, and finally tugged Ambrose's trousers down out of the way. Even managed not to fumble too much, for all that his brain was still in a fog.
He leaned close and murmured, "Turn 'round. Put your hands on the sink."
Ambrose gave him a wary look, but eventually did what he was told, bending forward a bit to lean over and brace his hands on either side of the white porcelain.
Regal pushed up tight behind him, chest-to-back, the cradle of his hips flush against Ambrose's backside.
For the second time that day, he had Ambrose pinned.
He doubted Ambrose minded a bit.
In fact, Ambrose just shuddered and pulled in a shaky breath when Regal nipped the side of his neck.
Oh, you like that, Regal thought, stifling the urge to laugh.
He hooked one arm around Ambrose's chest and let the other hand wander down to Ambrose's very erect cock, and he smiled again into the curve of Ambrose's shoulder.
The boy's knuckles were white on the edges of the sink.
But Regal didn't mess about this time, just nipped and kissed the bare bits of skin near his mouth as his hands stayed busy below the belt, alternating quick, flicking strokes with slower twisting ones and pausing to scrape the palm of his hand just-so until he had Ambrose practically writhing into his hands (as much as he could, anyway, given how tightly Regal had him pinned against the sink), muttering a rough string of curses that sped up as he ground himself faster into Regal's hand.
Regal pushed himself in tight and sped up his hand, and finally Ambrose went over, teeth grit and breathing like a bloody steam engine, body shaking and jerking like it was caught in some odd sort of earthquake.
Eventually, he took a deep breath and pushed it out, muttering, "Jesus fuck."
Taking that as his cue to back off, Regal moved back to the other sink, leaving Ambrose braced where he was, red-faced and panting.
"All right there?" he couldn't help asking, corner of his mouth pulled into a smirk.
"Fuck off," Ambrose muttered.
Chuckling, Regal twisted the water on and stuck his hands under it. "Now, now, no need to be rude. I could have made you beg, you know."
"No, you couldn't have." He looked over. "I feel like we've had this conversation before."
"I was just thinking," Regal said, "that if you're so sure I won't be able to make you beg, why don't we wager on it? If I can make you beg tonight, you let me do anything I want to you for a night. If I can't, I'll do anything you want for one. And, lad, when I say anything, I do mean anything – doesn't jut have to be something in the bedroom."
"Oh, you're on," Ambrose said, grinning wolfishly. "You are so on, old man."
Regal merely smiled himself – already imagining all the fun he was going to have with this – and shut the water off, tugging a paper towel down to dry his hands.
"Well, then," he said, "now that that's settled, I do have a more serious question for you. Have you got any pressing plans for your days off?"
"Uh." Ambrose's expression closed down in a hurry, mouth tightening and eyebrows pinching together. He turned on his own faucet and began cleaning himself up. "Not - uh, not really. Just, y'know, goin home. Why?"
Regal cleared his throat. The idea had popped into his head this morning while Ambrose was down working out, and had come back again at the first sight of Bray Wyatt skulking about. "Don't read anything into this - it's honestly because I'm concerned about Wyatt - but I think you ought to come stay with me in Florida this week. I'll be down doing some work for NXT part of the time, but I don't expect you'll have keeping yourself occupied. I have a guest room," he added when he saw Ambrose blink at him, "and that's where I'd put you."
"Oh." Ambrose tucked himself back in and zipped up, frowning. He seemed a bit thrown. "Well, uh, I already got my flight home booked and - I mean, do you really think Wyatt would…? He wouldn't come after me in Vegas, would he?"
"I don't know," Regal admitted. "But considering what he did last night, I'd say it would be rather foolish on your part to think he wouldn't." He folded his arms over his chest and leaned sideways against the sink. "If you'd rather not come to Florida, what about staying with Reigns or Rollins?"
"No."
After a short mental debate, Regal said, "I know it's none of my concern, but what did happen last night with you three? Are you still a team?"
Ambrose grabbed another wad of paper towels, shoved them under the water to wet them, and began swiping up the mess. "Yeah. In the ring. Out of it, not so much. We were. You probably knew - everybody knew - we were fucking. Now we're not. Well…" He chucked the paper towels harder than necessary at the bin. "They are, still. But they wanted me out. Want to get serious, I guess. Just them. So I'm out. So no, I can't stay with them."
Regal felt an odd tug at that - two conflicting urges pulling at either end of a rope: wanting to laugh in spiteful glee at the badly-concealed hurt in the boy's eyes, and a sudden desire to lash out at Reigns and Rollins in the same manner he wanted to lash out at Wyatt.
Push and pull.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought. Wasn't the time for it, really. "It wouldn't take much more than a phone call to change your flight. And I stand by what I said: I'm not positive Wyatt will try anything, but considering the trouble he's given you the last couple days, I'm not sure it's worth taking the chance. If something were to happen to you out there, it might be a while before anyone realizes it."
"All right, all right, all right," Ambrose muttered. He was all but hugging himself, fingers tapping his biceps. "Mean, maybe me and the guys get lucky tonight and we put these assholes down, but, like, in case we don't, in case something happens, yeah, maybe - maybe - you got a point. Guess - fuck, I don't know. I could. Y'know. Come down. If you got a guest room or whatever. That - I mean, I guess that'd be okay. But, fuck, I don't really wanna run. I'd rather just cut his fucking throat and be done with it, you know?"
"I know," Regal said. Took a lot of willpower for him not to smile. "But there are laws and things you have to abide by, however annoying you might find them. 'Thou shalt not kill,' and so on. You'll have to settle for pounding their heads into the canvas."
"Hmm." Ambrose shrugged. "That's always fun. And I can do that as much as I want."
"That you can," Regal said. "And, ah, to lighten the mood a bit, we do have that wager ahead of us this evening. If you come down to Florida, the loser will have plenty of time to make good on his end of it."
The corners of Ambrose's mouth twitched up. "That - uh, that's very true. Huh. Yeah. Uh, guess - I mean, that could definitely be a thing. I should, uh…" He patted his pants pockets. "Shit, I left my phone down in the locker room. Guess - fuck, yeah, I should probably go see if I can find Seth and Roman, anyway. See what they wanna do tonight."
Regal nodded and pushed away from the sink. "I've got to get going myself. I'm due ringside to watch the NXT lads go at it in the dark match."
Still a bit of time before he had to be down there, though - time enough, he thought, as he followed Ambrose out of the room, for one last errand.
Because he might not have wanted to be in this fight, but he was in it now, and if he was in it, then by God, he was going to be in it to the bitter, bloody end.
xXx
The restless crowd chanting overhead made the building feel like it was creaking and groaning around them.
It reminded Luke of being a kid again, back in the swamp, and crowding into the old barn where Bray's daddy delivered his word to the whole family: people would start to get lost in it all, moaning and rocking like they were possessed, and everyone would start singing, their voices drifting up toward the dusty old loft where Luke and Bray and the others would play. The whole barn would moan and move with them.
It was fitting, Luke guessed, that Bray was now delivering his word in a place like this - to a crowd a thousand times the size of the family at the compound and in a place bigger than that old barn ever dreamed of being.
Doing something his lying murderer of a daddy never did.
Luke couldn't hear what they were chanting, not down in the basement, but he could hear the chants like some rhythmic heartbeat, and it eased him some.
Seemed to ease Bray, too, who'd been tooing-and-froing down the narrow, dark hallway they'd hold up in.
Bray hadn't said much since telling them about seeing Regal, but Luke guessed he was busy listening to whatever Abigail had to say to want to talk much.
In fact-
A heavy thump and the sounds of a startled scuffle at the far end of the hallway had Luke pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against and running like his life depended on it.
("My life for you, Bray.")
He skidded to a stop near the stairwell, just managing not to trip on Erick, who slumped down a heap against the wall, sheep mask knocked askew and blood trickling from the side his head to his beard.
Someone had Bray pushed up against the wall in the stairwell itself - a big, broad-shouldered man in a black suit, shaggy blond hair hanging down over his collar.
The man - Regal, Luke was sure, because nobody else he knew fit that description - had an arm barred across Bray's throat, and one knee shoved right up into the fork of Bray's legs.
One of Bray's hands was cuffed to the bannister behind him.
Regal had been that fast.
Now he shot Luke a look over one shoulder and said, "Don't." The tone of his voice and the cold in eyes conjured up images of the swirling snow outside. His other hand, Luke suddenly noticed, was holding something up to the side of Bray's neck. Looked like a knife of some kind, or a straight-razor. "Stay right where you are and you'll all three walk away."
In the stairwell's twilight dim, Bray's face was mostly shadows, but Luke thought he was smiling. "Easy, now," he said, and he didn't sound troubled. It sounded, in fact, like he was about to start laughing. "Easy, Luke. It's all right. Let's hear what he's got to say." He did chuckle, quiet and dark. "Although I'm pretty sure I can guess."
Regal looked back around at Bray. "I'm sure you can, sunshine. I'm sure you know exactly why I'm here."
"To chase me off your property?" Bray drawled lazily. "Funny - I didn't see your name stamped anywhere on him. And believe me, I took a real good look." He hissed suddenly, air caught sharp between his teeth, and Luke twitched forward as he saw a line of dark blood ooze down over the bandage that still covered up the bite. Bray caught his eye over Regal's shoulder and shook his head. "Stay where y'are, Luke."
"That's a very good idea, Mr. Harper," Regal said.
Bray looked back at Regal. "So. It would seem you've got my attention. You're gonna threaten me. Lemme guess: you'll kill me if I get near him? Something like that?"
"Something like that," Regal replied. He had a smile of his own in his voice. "Except it won't be quick and I guarantee you it won't be painless. Every mark, every scar, everything you've done to him - you'll get twice, with more besides. You'll be wishing for your end long before it comes." He was matter-of-fact about it, the words simple and start, and Luke somehow found that far more unnerving than any actual threat.
"Real original." Bray, though, he almost sounded bored. Not the least intimidated. "Why not just do it now and be done, Regal?"
"John Cena."
Luke blinked at that. Bray blinked at that. "What about 'im?"
"I feel the way you do about him," Regal said. "I think you'll find more do than don't. Man's a bloody cancer on our industry – a hypocrite and a liar. Only in it for his own fame and fortune, which – honestly, who isn't? I wouldn't even mind it so much if he'd just be honesty about it. Stop pretending he gives a damn about those little children, stop shilling that garbage he wears, and just bloody accepts the fact he's a villain. Because he is. He'd be absolutely magnificent at it. But instead, he's a leech. A virus. Everything you've called him and more."
"If that's so," Bray said, "if that's so, why haven't you stepped in to stop him?"
"Because I know I can't," was the quiet reply. "He's the disease, but I'm not the cure. Are you, I wonder? Are you the cure, Bray Wyatt?"
For a long time, Bray was quiet. Luke crouched down beside Erick, who'd begun to stir, and put a hand in the middle of Erick's chest to keep him still.
Finally, Bray said, "I am."
"I think you might be," Regal said. The razor moved again, this time hissing along the line of Bray's beard. More blood followed it. "I hope you are, actually, I really do. You're so very different from everyone else who's tried to cure that disease, that cancer, aren't you? Yes, yes, I'm rather excited to see what you'll do. How you'll do it."
"Are you, now?" Bray rasped. His voice sounded a bit strange, tight and strangled.
"Mm-hmm." Regal laughed quietly. "So are you, from the sounds of things. Hmm. Well, as I said, leave Ambrose alone. Unless you're in a sanctioned match with him, don't look at him, don't speak to him, don't go near him, don't lay a finger on him. If you do…" One more line, this up under Bray's ear. "You'll find, as he did, this old man has a few nasty little tricks left up his sleeve. Are we understood?"
The cuff around Bray's wrist clanked as he shifted and cleared his throat. "He ain't yours, Regal."
"No, he's not," Regal said, "and I never said he was. As many times as I've been bitten, I know better." One finger tapped the bandage on Bray's neck, which was now all slicked up with blood. "You can't be that eager to see that monster set loose, can you?"
The brim of Bray's hat bobbed as he nodded. "All that destruction, all that chaos. Monster like that out there clearing my way forward, there wouldn't be much could stop me. Could stop us."
"No," Regal said, "but I rather think a snowflake had a better chance of surviving the fiery depths that you ever actually finding a way to control him. Especially considering what you did to him the other night. I think he'd rip your heart out the first chance he got. And I'd pay good money to see it." Regal backed off all at once, pulling the knife away from Bray's throat. "He's not for you, lad, so you'd best let him be. John Cena, on the other hand, is. Stop that cancer spreading. Kill the virus. Show people what he really is."
He walked up two steps, facing Bray the entire time, casually wiping his razor on a handkerchief he produced from his suit coat's inside pocket.
Bray didn't move. He couldn't, not with his hand cuffed. "We mean to," he said. "But so we're clear: it's Ambrose you want me to stay away from, or all three of them?"
Regal looked at Bray for a long time.
Eventually, he folded his razor closed and put it away. He reached into another pocket, pulled something else out and flicked it at Bray.
Bray caught whatever it was - something small and on a chain - one-handed.
The handcuff key, Luke realized, as he heard the metal clatter.
As he turned away, Regal said, "Just Ambrose. Can't say as I much care what happens to the other two."
With that, he disappeared up the stairs.
Luke and Erick both scrambled to their feet, Erick nearly tripping over himself in his haste to make it over to Bray's side. He wound up on his knees at the foot of the stairs, with Luke standing beside him, big boot resting on the bottom step.
Bray, still following Regal's progress up, lifted his now-free hand to swipe at the side of his neck. The three neat blood lines smeared into one. "Well, well, well," he said, "wasn't that interestin."
"I'm sorry, Bray," Erick said, voice muffled behind his mask. He hung his head. "I didn't see him coming."
"It's all right," Bray said absently. "I didn't either. But it doesn't matter. Not at all."
Something about the tone of Bray's voice took Luke back to a time when two boys had stood on a riverbank in the midnight dark, an empty can of gasoline each in hand, and had watched bright orange flames engulf a boat.
Luke, smaller and skinnier and dumber, had said, "What if somebody sees?"
Bray, eyes aglow with firelight, had said, absently, "It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all."
Now, Luke shifted, tugged at his beard. "What do we do now?"
"Exactly what we planned to," Bray said, finally turning to look at Luke and Erick. He slipped the handcuffs and its key into his pocket. "Break The Shield, fetch Abigail the rabbit, and destroy John Cena."
Eyes drawn to the blood on the side of Bray's neck, Luke said, "How do we get the rabbit?"
Bray...giggled. Cackled. The broken glass sound on its edges made Luke's arms prickle hard enough he had to rub them. But if Bray noticed that, or the way even Erick shifted, he gave no sign. "Regal's no threat to us, boys," he said. "That was unexpected, I admit, but it was more humorous than frightening, wasn't it? Toothless snake thinking a loud hiss is gonna frighten us away. We'll take the rabbit. We'll take him right out from under his nose. She saw the way. Abigail. He didn't. Didn't even realize that he just handed us a loaded gun and told us exactly where to aim it. But she saw. She knows.
"And we'd do it," he went on, "this very night.
"For now, boys, let's go educate these poor lost souls about the cancer that is John Cena."
Humming, he led Luke and Erick out of the dark stairwell and into the light of the main hall.
It was a long time before Luke's skin stopped prickling.
xXx
Daddy was a bad man.
Sloppy drunk who talked in sloppy riddles and threw sloppy punches.
"You were s'posed to protect her, you worthless bastard," he'd slur, and the belt in his hand would fall in a sloppy arc across Bray's back - not cracking smart, but crashing down with a limp whump that still hurt because it came buckle-end first. "You were s'posed to protect her. She's dead and it's your fault. Your fault. You were s'posed to protect her."
Whop.
It burned and burned.
But Bray got the last laugh, hadn't he?
At fifteen, with his friend Luke Harper at his side.
(They'd found Luke's brother Matt dead in the swamp four years ago, partially eaten. He wasn't the only one that turned up dead over the next few years - they found the whole McReedy family (father, mother, and two sons) scattered in bits out there, too, not long after the McReedys threatened to leave the compound; they also found fifteen-year-old Becky Cray girl out there, mutilated almost beyond recognition (and Bray shuddered at that because he'd seen his daddy eyeing that girl's blossoming chest often as she'd carried wood across the compound); and the most recent was Becky Cray's daddy, who got drunk and screamed at everyone that he was going to the police.
He disappeared in the night, but nobody ever found him.
Nobody ever talked about him.
They were scared to.)
When he wasn't sloppy drunk, Daddy was a force of nature, big and burly and powerful, with the kind of personality that drew people in and kept them there. And Daddy, he kept all the families at the compound on a short, tight leash.
For all that Daddy claimed to want to change the world and bring order into the chaos, to expose the fake and ignorant and to unseat the lying kings from their unearned thrones, he created a stifling atmosphere of paranoia and distrust for anyone outside "the family," painting the rest of the world as full of rapists and liars and killers.
By thirteen, Bray couldn't help thinking there were just as many monsters in the compound as out.
Bad men everywhere.
And it burned and burned and burned - Daddy's every hit, every slurred curse, every lie, every time Daddy eyed his next-
(victim)
-conquest like he didn't think Bray was watching.
It burned and burned and burned.
At first Bray was too small to fight back right.
But it finally dawned on him when he was fifteen what he didn't have on Daddy in size he definitely had on him in mind. And it was his mind - not his muscles - he needed to use to kill the monster.
"'S your fault," Daddy slurred. "Your fault, you worthless bastard."
Whap. Whap.
Bray's mouth was filled with blood and both eyes were swollen shut, and there wasn't much of him that didn't hurt.
Daddy's first hit was a complete blindsider, a knock over the back the head and sent him crashing to the kitchen floor in a heap. He'd knocked into one of the kitchen chairs, which had in turn rattled the table enough to knock a glass onto the floor. It shattered and Daddy'd thrown Bray down on it.
His back burned from the belt and his hands and knees sizzled from glass cuts, and a bonfire raged in his mind.
But he'd laughed.
Oh he'd laughed despite the pain, and that had driven Daddy into an even greater frenzy, but Bray suddenly knew what he had to do, and he wasn't scared - not anymore - because Daddy wasn't a monster.
Daddy was just a bad man and there was a way to deal with bad men.
After it was all said and done, Daddy staggered off into the buzzing night, leaving Bray to bleed all over.
The very next night, Bray'd limped out to meet his only friend Luke Harper.
He'd spoken the five words - the secret - he'd been carrying around with him for the last four years.
"My daddy killed your brother."
(Daddy'd killed them all, hadn't he?)
(You killed them.)
(Your fault.)
And Luke, who was a year older and a lot bigger, had grabbed Bray by the collar and shook him until Bray's teeth came together - clacked together just like hers had - and Luke had demanded answers. ("you knew, you knew, you never tole me, why didn't you tell me if you knew")
Bray hadn't any to give him , just offered the only thing he could:
A chance to make it right.
Two cans of gasoline - one each stolen from the Harpers' house and from Bray's own - and one match.
And Daddy passed out drunk on his boat.
The sound the boat made when it went up in flames was some kind of animal roar, guttural and deep, like something pulled out of Bray's own chest and he'd looked over at big Luke Harper - all of sixteen, but big as a man - and saw the bright orange flames reflected in Luke's eyes and he'd laughed.
Laughed and laughed while the bad man burned.
Burned and burned and burned.
x
And that night, as he'd sat alone staring up at the stars, he thought about Abigail.
You hurt him, she suddenly whispered at him, in that same, sweet, childish little voice that still haunted his dreams from time to time.
"Yeah," he'd mumbled, propping his chin on his hands and smiling for the first time in what felt like years. It hurt - his face was battered and bruised - but he was just so glad to hear her he didn't care. "Guess I did."
He was a bad man, she said.
Bray just nodded.
She started humming to him, quiet and sweet, and it wasn't the same as a hug, but inside, for the first time since she went venchering off to heaven, he felt warm all the way through.
xXx
Dean wandered into the locker room already dressed in his gear.
He shot Seth and Roman a single glance, muttered, "Hey," and went over to grab his phone off the bags Seth had righted a few minutes ago.
Seth had been trying to distract himself by checking his Twitter feed; now he tossed his phone aside, trying to sake the sudden irritation. "'Hey'?" he asked. Just 'hey.' Like it was no big fucking deal he'd been missing all afternoon. "The hell have you been, man? We've been worried sick."
"Uh." Dean squinted down at the floor. "I didn't sleep too good last night, so I caught a nap in one of the offices down the hall. Forgot my phone like an idiot. And, uh, I gotta make a quick call, but I'll be back in a minute. We can, uh, you know, talk about what, I mean, I guess - whatever you guys want to do tonight."
Without waiting for an answer, he ducked back out into the hall.
As soon as he was gone, Seth jumped up and started pacing the little room again – three steps and around, fast enough to make him dizzy and drive Roman crazy again, but dammit, he knew what he heard:
'Whatever you guys wanna do tonight.'
'You guys.'
Not 'we.'
A quick look at Roman over on the bench showed him tight-jawed and staring moodily down at the floor, and Seth would have bet a week's pay Roman heard the same fucking thing.
You guys.
It was more like five minutes when Dean finally came back in.
"Hot date?" Seth asked.
Dean frowned and reached for his hoodie. "Uh, no. Just - travel stuff. Why are you pacing?"
"Just wondering if you're actually ever going to join your team tonight," Seth sniped. And immediately wanted to punch himself. He stopped and took a deep breath. "Forget I said that, sorry. Look, let's get out of here. Go somewhere quiet. We can talk about what we're going to do."
The locker room was in the middle of the main hall, where a lot of traffic passed by. Seth doubted any of them gave a shit about what The Shield was up to, but better safe than sorry.
"Oh-kay," Dean said slowly. He looked confused, but followed them out into what did prove to be a very busy hallway. "So, what, we thinkin' six-man match or something?"
Seth veered around a corner and headed off toward the big loading area, which right now, with SmackDown finally underway, was mostly empty. "Yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, that's what we're thinking. I'm sure Wyatt's going to be out there at some point. We'll just go out there and throw out the challenge."
"Oh," Dean said. He cleared his throat. "All right. So. Uh, sounds like you got it figured out, then. What we're doing."
He sounded distracted, almost, or like he didn't give much of a shit, and it just hit Seth wrong. Yeah, he wanted to snap, yeah, I did, no thanks to you, asshole.
They finally stopped walking, and Seth turned around to face his two teammates.
Roman was, not shockingly, glowering off at nothing, a muscle in his jaw working like he really wanted to say something, but couldn't quite get the words out.
Dean had pulled in on himself so much he kind of reminded Seth of a turtle, all hunched shoulders and his head down. He kept his attention on his wrist tape, running a finger over it to smooth it down. Looked pretty smooth already, but Seth guessed maybe there some hidden wrinkles or something.
Before Seth could vent his irritation (and fuck feeling bad, anyway), though, Roman turned to glare at the top of Dean's lowered head and said, sharply, "So you good with the plan, then, Ambrose? Got yourself together? Or are you gonna go rogue on us again?"
Seth snapped around to stare at him.
Because angry or not, fuck, that was harsh.
Dean rolled his eyes heavenward and made a really obnoxious frustrated noise - AAAAH - that made Seth feel like decking him. "I'm here, aren't I?" he said without looking up from his tape "God, you tell me I need to relax. So, what, you still mad about the DQ thing?"
"The DQ thing?" Roman asked. "It's a thing?"
"Apparently," Dean muttered. "Guessing you are, then."
"It's a loss," Roman said. "A DQ is a loss. I don't lose."
"Look, what do you want from me?" Dean asked, suddenly flinging his hands wide. He sounded as frustrated and pissed off as Seth felt. "You want my help, you don't want my help - what? What do you want?"
"Two losses in a year and a half," Roman said. If looks could kill, Dean would be a smear of bones and blood on the wall. "Two losses in less than a week. Why? Because of you."
Every one of them froze the second Roman said it.
Felt like the damn air had been sucked out of the room.
Because it was the wrong fucking thing to say - none of them even believed it , anyway; it was just some stupidshit thing anger made Roman blurt out - and as soon as he realized it, Roman's whole expression changed from furious to apologetic.
But before he could get the words 'I'm sorry' out, Dean flared, "Well, you know, if you weren't always yelling at me, blaming me for things that-"
"Hey, hey, zip it!" Seth cut him off. "Roman, you lost. You're a grown man. Cut the crap and pick yourself up. Move on. 'Cuz I gotta tell ya, I think Wyatt is trying to move on." He pushed things that way - had to - because this situation had somehow turned into a ticking time bomb again. "Thinks we're just ashes in the wake of his path to John Cena, but we know better. Let's go show him we're more than three lone wolves, boys. Let's show 'im when you mess with the hounds, you get the teeth."
Dean was shifting his weight back and forth as he stared at the floor, expression unreadable, while Roman lifted his chin like a fuckin' warrior and grinned. "Strap up, boys. Let's go hunt Wyatts."
Seth led the way with Roman beside him.
Behind him, he heard a quiet snort and a muttered, "Elmer fuckin' Fudd. I so called that."
He shot a look over his shoulder and saw Dean smirking to whatever private joke was playing out in his head.
Better that, Seth guessed, than the anger.
xXx
They put up a united front against the Wyatts in the ring - Seth and Dean even managing to hit tandem suicide dives on Harper and Rowan, and then running back to snap to attention at Roman's side (like good little soldiers) - but Triple H, whose Authority was getting more and more out of control by the damn second, rained all over Seth's plan to challenge for a match tonight.
Instead, Hunter set it up for Monday.
Wyatt had taunted Roman into making the first move, but wound up backing down, grinning nastily like he was in on some secret no one else was.
Once again, though, The Shield owned the ring, much to the delight of the crowd, which, booed the Wyatts right out of the damn building for refusing to fight.
With things feeling stable between the three of them - for now - it felt a hell of a lot more like a victory than last night had.
xXx
"Now that's more like it!" Seth said as soon as they made it into the little hallway beyond Gorilla. He reached over and clapped Roman on the shoulder. "And come Monday, boys, we're gonna wipe those Wyatts off the map."
"We better," Roman grumbled. "I'm getting a little tired of losing."
"Dude, don't start that shit again," Seth said.
Roman shook his head. "I wasn't. I just meant in general. The last few months - not exactly great for us. We need this win. Get some momentum going into Wrestlemania season. Remember last year? Like that."
"One thing at a time, Rome," Seth said. "Wyatts first. That's all that matters right now. We gotta get our heads in the game about that and figure it out."
Roman shot a pointed look over his shoulder. "All of us, Ambrose."
"Yeah, thanks for the newsflash, Reigns," Dean retorted.
"Knock it off," Seth growled. Mostly at Roman, but he felt like knocking both their heads together. Again. "After all the shit we've been through the last few days, why do you have to be like this?"
"'Cuz I sat there with you today and watched you about wear a hole in the floor," Roman said quietly, "over an asshole who didn't even have the courtesy to say he was sorry he made you worry. Considering Wyatt was on the prowl, I have to say I was pretty damn worried, too."
"I am sorry about that, actually," Dean mumbled. "Didn't mean to make you worry. Just - dumbass move. I'll try to remember my phone next time."
"You better," Roman said, turning to follow Seth down the main hall. "You gotta be careful, Ambrose."
"Okay," Dean snapped. "Jesus, I get it."
"All right," Roman said mildly. "Okay. I just want you to be safe, man."
Seth, meanwhile, grimaced when he saw William fucking Regal down at the far end of the hall. Yet again everything that could go wrong tonight seemed to be. Regal, apparently on his way out, had his overcoat thrown over an arm and stood talking to Sheamus and Wade Barrett, both of whom were wearing their street clothes and had bags in hand.
Just like last night, Seth turned on his heel and put himself in Dean's path.
Dean nearly walked headfirst into Seth's chest, only just managing to jerk to a stop. "Jesus," he muttered, glaring. "What the fuck, Seth?"
Seth reached over to a settle hand on Dean's shoulder. "Hey, I was thinking, uh, it's been a while since you and I went out and had a drink," he said, "and I was just thinking maybe it was time we should. 'Cuz we need to talk. Like, seriously talk. Just us."
"Can't," Dean said, reaching up to brush Seth's hand away. "I got plans. And, anyway, what's there to talk about? 'Cuz if you're just gonna crawl all over my back about Regal again, I don't wanna hear it."
Seth opened his mouth to answer him, but stopped when he felt Roman's hand on his arm. Roman said, "You need to, bro. We're not trying to be assholes about this, but considering your history with that guy - and yeah, even I remember - I think we have a right to be worried."
Dean frowned up at them both. "You guys wanted me out," he said, sounding like he'd just swallowed a mouthful of broken glass, "and I'm out. So no, you don't. You don't have a right to shit anymore. Where I go, what I do, and who with – that's none of your fucking business. Not anymore. You don't get to have this both ways."
"We're not trying to," Seth said. It hurt more he wanted to admit, hearing it thrown out there like that – like 'you guys threw me aside' – and it took him a lot of effort to keep his hands at his side. To not try to reach over when a touch probably would have been shoved away.
"No, we're not," Roman said then, his voice steady and even. "It's just – bro, if it affects you, and you're affecting the team because of it, then it is our business."
Seth nodded. "Regal affects you, man. He always has."
"Maybe, but that's not affecting the team," Dean said. "Know what is? You two accusing me of lying to you. Blaming me for shit that's not my fault. Acting like you got some right to my private life after you two said you wanted me out of yours. That is the shit that's affecting the team where I'm standing."
"I didn't mean that," Roman said. "What I said. I know it's not your fault we lost. I don't blame you."
"And we believe you," Seth added quickly. He was still pretty sure he was going to kick Roman's ass for starting the whole 'it's your fault crap,' but he felt a little better that he didn't have to push Roman to own up to it. Made him breathe a little easier. Made it easier to say, "We just wanted to know the whole story – what happened that night. Regal being involved at all kinda threw us. You had to know it would."
"Yeah, I did," Dean said. "But I told you and I've been telling you it doesn't fucking matter. Because it doesn't. Doesn't have anything to do with anything. But you're still ganging up on me about it. You should see yourselves."
"We're not ganging up on you," Seth said, but he glanced over at Roman as he did, and - yeah.
He and Roman were more-or-less standing shoulder-to-shoulder, both with their arms folded across their chest like some kind of disapproving human-
(shield)
-wall, Roman frowning and Seth feeling tight like a drawn bowstring.
"Sure about that?" Dean asked, eyebrows raised. "'Cuz it kinda feels that way."
"Looks it, too," a quietly accented voice said from behind them.
Seth shot Regal a glare over one shoulder. "Get out of here. This is none of your fucking business."
Regal was leaning sideways against the wall a few paces behind them, overcoat slung casually over one arm, and the other hand in his pocket. "I beg to differ, lads," he said. "I believe I've heard my name mentioned a few times. It's rather impolite to discuss someone when he's not about to defend himself. So."
Roman turned and drew himself up to his full height. "So you heard Seth, Regal. Leave."
"Not until I've said my piece," Regal said. "I doubt you'll believe me, but you lads have nothing to worry about from me where he's concerned." He nodded at Dean. "I'm not interested in playing mind games with him and I'm not bloody sick enough to want to see him slide back into his obsessions. I'm not stupid, lads."
"Then what the fuck do you want?' Seth asked. He didn't give a shit how rude it sounded. Regal's cold arrogant bullshit just made Seth want to punch him in his big fucking nose. "Huh? Why now? What's your deal?"
"That's not actually any of your concern," Regal said.
"Nope," Dean put in, shaking his hair out of his eyes. It had dried enough it was starting to really frizz. Made him look kind of like a mad scientist. He squared his shoulders and straightened his hoodie. "Wyatts. That's what we gotta worry about. 'Cuz Monday? It's fucking war. I wanna burn those motherfuckers to the ground. So let's, like, let's plan to work something up over the weekend. I'll ride with you guys. We can talk about this shit. Everything. Just - let's call it a week. Take a break. Pretty sure we all need it."
Seth forced himself to unclench his hands, to nod. Sighing, he started undoing the buckles on his vest. "I think we do, yeah," he admitted. "Shit. All right, fine. Let's call it a week, and you're goddamn right you're riding with us this weekend. I'm sick of listening Roman's weak-ass pop music."
"Hey!" Roman protested, thumping Seth's shoulder. "You were singing that Mariah Carey song, so-"
"Dude!" Seth yelped. "Don't say shit like that!"
"Then don't insult my musical taste, then, ya jerk."
"You don't have musical taste, Rome," Dean said, smirking as he walked past. "We'll see you Saturday, guys."
"Keep your fucking phone on," Seth called after him.
"I will," Dean called back. He paused in front of Regal, who Seth saw actually had two coats in his hand - his own overcoat and Dean's leather jacket, which he handed over.
Disquieted, still, and uneasy at the sight of those two together, Seth lowered his head and headed off toward the locker room. Roman fell into step beside him, tattooed arm finding its way around Seth's shoulders. "Maybe it is different this time," he offered softly.
"I doubt it," Seth mumbled.
He made the mistake of looking back one last time before going into the locker room.
Regal leaned close to say something in Dean's ear. Whatever he said made Dean smile - the bright one with the dimple. Dean said something back, and whatever that was, it made Regal reach over and tug Dean's stocking hat down over his eyes and say, clearly, "Bloody brat," which made Dean laugh just loud enough Seth could hear it echoing quietly through the hallway.
Seth's stomach folded and twisted on itself.
But as much as he wanted to yell at them, he made himself look away, walk away.
It's none of your fuckin' business, he reminded himself, crouching down to pull a change of clothes out of his bag.
It just wasn't.
xXx
It was so cold out breathing hurt.
The snow-choked air going into his lungs felt almost like trying to inhale glass - not quite as bad as Alaska had been - but still cold enough Seth couldn't wait to get back to their hotel and step into a nice hot shower.
Wash the week away from him.
He'd never been more grateful for Roman's steady presence beside him, solid and warm, one hand on Seth's elbow to keep him from slipping on a parking lot that now felt like a fucking skating rink.
Not that Roman was much steadier on his feet, but it was the thought that counted.
They were heading to Iowa together for their days off, down to Seth's house, and he actually couldn't wait. Since they'd had the Pay-Per-View this week, that meant no house show for them until Saturday night, which meant an extra day to rest and recover, an extra day to spend doing nothing with Roman, and an extra day to start making plans for the Wyatts on Monday.
The parking lot was fairly empty by now.
Roman, for whatever reason, had wanted to stick around to see the main event - the Usos and Daniel Bryan taking on Kane and the Outlaws - so after they'd changed, they'd made their way back up to the lounge room where the crew had set up monitors and they'd watched.
Nobody bothered them, which was nice.
Now, with most of the crowd cleared away and most of the crew gone, and with a lot of his stress tucked in a box in the back of his mind, Seth could admit to himself just how tired he was.
It was pretty fucking exhausting, trying to keep all those balls in the air.
Roman squeezed his arm, though, and smiled over.
It almost made Seth forget about the ass-kicking he owed the guy.
Almost.
They finally made it to the car. Roman hit the button to open the trunk and they both skidded around the car to throw their shit in, hurrying because the snow was just fucking cold - even to an Iowa boy like Seth.
Roman slammed the trunk shut, and Seth turned around just in time to see Erick Rowan raising his hammer-like fists over Roman's back.
Hard to mistake a guy in fucking sheep's mask, but Seth never even had a chance to shout a warning.
Rowan's fists crashed down on Roman just as something slammed full-force into Seth's back and knocked him face-first to the frozen, snow-covered ground.
Someone's knee settled right in the middle of his shoulder blades, and a big hand covered his mouth. He struggled, but another hand grabbed him by the hair and slammed his forehead down onto the concrete hard enough to make his ears ring.
All he could do was watch, helpless and stunned, as Rowan shoved Roman headfirst into the concrete footer of the light post next to the car.
Roman fell to the ground, unmoving.
Those same big hands - Harper's, Seth realized dully - picked him and set him on his feet.
Bray Wyatt swam into Seth's field of vision, white pants and a dark coat and a white hat like some kind of inside-out Oreo cookie, and Seth snorted and squinted because something was wrong with this picture here. Too much static.
Like they had bad reception on a TV.
Or - no. No, it was snowing.
Outside.
"Well, now," Wyatt drawled. "I know we were supposed to wait to do this until Monday, but I was just so giddy with anticipation I couldn't wait."
Seth struggled against Harper's hold, but only until he caught one of Wyatt's meaty fists in the solar plexus.
He sagged, struggling to breathe the jagged air, blood roaring in his frozen ears.
Eventually, his lungs unlocked, and he managed to lift his eyes. "What do you want, Wyatt?"
"You'll see, little hound," Wyatt said softly, breath leaving vapor trails in the air. "You'll see. Soon. Give him to me, Luke."
Seth found himself summarily shoved forward. He slipped on the ice and would have fallen, if Wyatt hadn't stepped forward to catch him.
Wyatt's coat was some kind of old down thing and it smelled horrible - musty and old. Seth flinched away, but Wyatt pulled him in tight.
Seth felt himself spun around a few times in some sick parody of a dance. Try as he might, though, he couldn't coordinate his muscles enough to do much more than flail weakly. At some point, Wyatt bent him over backward, until the top of Seth's head almost touched the ground.
Dread settled like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach when he felt Wyatt's dead-cold lips on his forehead and the icy-wet scratch of a frozen beard against his nose.
He knew what was coming.
And he. Couldn't. Fight it.
The last thing Seth Rollins heard before Bray Wyatt twisted him down headfirst onto the snowy pavement was, "William Regal sends his regards."
xXx
A/N: The chapter's title quote is from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
Story title is from the A Perfect Circle song "By and Down." Been meaning to mention that. Thanks for reading.